Pages

Wednesday, 9 August 2017

Old gardeners day out

Botanist Mike Ashford has turned his back on my ‘roofless roof garden’ which is really an old slab of concrete covered with soil and stone mulch

My wifeBrenda recently hosted a small gathering of long retired Askham Bryan colleagues and their partners in our garden. Please indulge me today as I wallow in nostalgia and share a few memories as old folks do.

Brenda’s lunch was as ever superb. Peter Williams not only took the pictures but after coffee on arrival we visited and marvelled at his own garden. He says his camera focus was out of focus but his pictures look good to me.

David Willis breeder of Euphorbia ‘Silver Swan’ had lost the plant in his own garden. David is a former custodian of a section of the National narcissus collection and has been involved in rehabilitating old varieties such as ‘Weardale Perfection’

I hope David can grow his plant better next time and as well as Peter

Wonderful 'Weardale Perfection' in a North Yorkshire churchyard

“He never stakes - but Brenda sometimes follows him round”

Isobel and June love herbaceous perennials. The gunnera and the aconite are free standing

“Current theory might satisfactorily explain how water gets up this tree but not a hundred metre redwood”

Former mature student 88 year old Alan Warwick explains his hypothesis. Thirty years earlier Alan had interrupted Philip Orton's botany lecture to tell him he was wrong.

Alan’s tree Malus ‘Crimson Cascade was launched at Chelsea this year.

“The drink makes him loquacious”

Peter Hemsley examines Inula hookeri (I had thought it was called Inula hemsleyana)

Peter is the most able horticulturist I know. The high quality of his landscape drawings are only surpassed by his ability to create and maintain the gardens. Not only can he precisely identify almost every garden tree he could climb them like a monkey to carry out arboricultural maintenance. In contrast he is also an authority on alpines

“ He does not dig you know”

Tony Thompson confides with his wife Margaret. Rhona looks on. Tony helped me run the NCH course (he did all the work).This craft all-comers course (provided students had practical experience) was the best in the college. More of a traditional gardener than me, ex Radio York gardening guru grows dozens of potato varieties and is the most loved and remembered tutor by former students.

"Brenda tells me he has lost his Stipa gigantea"

As a former Wye college student I admired fellow student Rhona’s effervescent personality and beauty from afar. Askham Bryan lecturer, more lately nurseryman and hill farmer (sheep) still lectures to gardeners. One of the kindest people I know.

Margaret Thompson snaps the frothy heads of the mature valerian flowers. She grows thirty different hostas and added one more today

“You could take Tony for an RHS judge”

Christine Hemsley and Isobel Ashford confer.

Peter in clover

Cameraman Peter Williams is not getting away without a mention. My best friend and his contributions are well known to readers of this blog. His garden in Seaton Ross village is one of Yorkshire’s finest. As a York University man he has not been privileged to work at Askham Bryan!

Further information and links

I told the story about the Chelsea launch of Dicentra 'Snowflakes' and how micro-propagator Philip Orton and Yorkshire author Joyce Fussy's new dicentra was introduced. They were guests on celebrities day. Poor Alan Warwick was only invited with the punters when his Malus 'Crimson Cascade' was launched this year. Things are not what they used to be.

See Peter Williams' lovely garden in this post. Peter's and my own garden are both open on Tuesday 22nd August in aid of Yorkshire Arboretum - combined ticket £5. More details on their website.

Addendum

You learn something every day and Peter Williams yesterday told me of yet another of David Willis’s achievements. He invented Vitax Q4

This is probably the best of the fertilisers on the amateur market and for me is only now exceeded by professional ones such as yaramila.

Working in the fertiliser industry fifty years ago David reasoned that a good fertiliser should be formulated with more sensible proportions of NPK and should contain necessary trace elements.

Vitax has been a market leader for fifty years and the same company has produced it for all of that time. He was recently invited to a slap up celebration by the company for the fertiliser’s fiftieth anniversary. Great for an old employee to be remembered.

15 comments:

This post was fun to read, thank you! Thank you also to your visitors who so kindly gave you permission to use their photos on your blog. I wish my sister and my partner were not so shy so that I could show Pictures with them on, too, but they won't have it.

I am sure that they are all ok with it but I never asked... nor for my wedding onesMy generation are not very comfortable with computers and most of my visitors have never read it - even after much prompting - and will never know!I guess as my visitors have worked in public that they will not mind. I hope!